The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant are an autobiography, in two volumes, of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States. The work focuses on his military career during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. The volumes were written in the last year of Grant's life, amid increasing pain from terminal throat cancer and against the backdrop of his personal bankruptcy at the hands of an early Ponzi scheme. The set was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death in July 1885.
Twain was a close personal friend of Grant and used his fame and talent to promote the books. Understanding that sales of the book would restore the Grant family's finances and provide for his widow, Twain created a unique marketing system designed to reach millions of veterans with a patriotic appeal just as the famous general's death was being mourned. Ten thousand agents canvassed the North for orders, following a script that Twain had devised. Many were Union veterans dressed in their old uniforms, who went door-to-door offering the two-volume set at prices ranging from $3.50 to $12, depending on the binding ($120 to $410 in 2023).
These efforts sold 350,000 two-volume sets in advance of the book's actual printing. This made the Memoirs one of the bestselling books of the 19th century, in its first year outselling even the publishing behemoth Uncle Tom's Cabin—an extremely unusual result for a non-fiction book. By way of comparison, the memoirs of Grant's colleague William Tecumseh Sherman, published in 1876, were an immense financial success for their author, selling 25,000 copies during its first decade in print. In the end Grant's widow, Julia, received about $450,000 ($15,300,000 in 2023) from Twain during the first three years of publication, suggesting that Grant received around 30% of each sale (i.e., a 30% royalty rate).[1][2]
Despite being explicitly written for money, and with a focus on those aspects of Grant's life most likely to induce sales, the combination of an honest man exploited in a financial scheme and then marked for death by cancer lent the Memoirs immense contemporary interest. The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant received universal acclaim on its publication and has remained highly regarded by the general public, military historians, and literary critics. Positive attention is often directed toward Grant's prose, which has been praised as lean, intelligent and effective. He candidly depicts his battles against both the Confederates and his internal Army foes.[3][4][5][6]
Grant and his wife Julia took a trip around the world in 1877 after his second term in office. Personally financed, this tour left him short on liquid assets on his return. He was nearly 60 and he looked for something to engage his time and replenish his finances. In 1878, he moved to New York City and entered into business with his son Buck (Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.) and Ferdinand Ward. Ward was a young investor and personal friend of the junior Grant. Ward was described by his great-grandson Geoffrey Ward as "a very plausible, charming, unobtrusive, slender person with a genius for finding older people and pleasing them, which he learned early on."[7]
The firm of Grant & Ward did well at first, bolstered by Ward's skills and Grant's name. The former president bragged to friends that he was worth two and a half million dollars, and family members and friends poured money into the firm. But Grant was largely disengaged from the company's business, often signing papers without reading them.[8] This proved disastrous, as Ward had used the firm as a Ponzi scheme, taking investors' money and spending it on personal items, including a mansion in Connecticut and a brownstone in New York City. Grant & Ward failed in May 1884, leaving Grant penniless. That fall, the elder Grant was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer.
Long before his diagnosis Grant wrote a series of articles analyzing many of the battles he had overseen. The Century Company published these articles in their flagship periodical, Century Magazine. Century paid Grant a flat author's fee of $500 (nearly $16,000 in 2024) per article. The essays were well received by critics and in 1876 the editor of Century Magazine, Robert Underwood Johnson, suggested Grant expand them into a memoir, as William Tecumseh Sherman had recently done to great acclaim. Facing his own mortality and the prospect of his family's destitution after his death, Grant approached Century with a proposal to publish his personal memoirs, serially and then in bound volumes. Century agreed to publish the work and drew up a contract in which the dying man would receive 10% of every sale of the book.[9][10][11]
Grant's personal friend Samuel Clemens (better known under his pen name Mark Twain) soon heard news of this publishing deal and was unable to conceal his disapproval at how little money he thought Grant stood to earn if he agreed to Century's terms. Twain dropped everything and rushed to New York City from his home in Hartford, Connecticut. When Twain entered the Grant home on 66th St. he noticed Grant's eldest son, Frederick reviewing the Century contract one final time before his father signed it. Twain recalled that Grant was on the point of picking up his pen as the novelist arrived.[10]
Twain intervened in the signing and asked to read the contract himself. After finishing his review Twain declared the term giving Grant 10% of all sales was insultingly low and amounted to exploitation of the former president's dire situation. Twain insisted that he could secure a far more favorable publishing contract for Grant and pressed him for his proxy in new negotiations. Grant felt a personal loyalty to the executives of Century, and considered it dishonorable to back out of his contract after all details had been agreed upon and papers drawn up. Twain grew exasperated and confessed that he himself had far better terms from his own publisher, the American Publishing Company.[10]
The key element in Mark Twain's proposal to Grant was publication through a subscription scheme. Twain himself was preparing to publish his own Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through a subscription plan. This involved door-to-door salesmen (often Civil War veterans) who collected upfront fees by which the eventual publication would be financed. Without a publisher's capital in play to cover printing and distribution, subscription gave the author far more power in determining their eventual share of sales. Further, under a subscription scheme, tens of thousands of dollars would be generated before the finished book was even bound. Twain was famously persuasive and this upfront cash was a powerful inducement to a man in Grant's situation, however it was only after Frederick suggested the present contract be set aside for 24 hours, until the facts of Twain's claims could be investigated, that his father agreed put off signing the Century contract.[10]
Knowing the former general's reputation for stubbornness, Twain privately fretted that 24 hours would not be enough time to convince Grant to change his mind. In the end it was Grant's sense of honor, coupled with his fear the memoirs would prove a flop, that persuaded him to accept Twain's plan: Twain had recommended Charles Webster Publishing, a new house run by his wife's nephew and largely capitalized by Twain himself. A subscription would not require Grant to put the money Twain had invested in Charles Webster at risk to publish his memoirs, as the capital necessary for publication and distribution would have been generated by subscription prior to printing. Such was Twain's faith in Grant's prose and the national interest in his thoughts that he gave Grant a sizeable advance anyway.
It is not known how large a role Twain's own financial difficulties played in his decision to intervene in the publication of Grant's memoirs or in his suggestion that the former president use a publisher in which Twain was a significant investor. Notwithstanding the money Twain stood to make from the successful publication of Grant's memoirs, the final terms agreed upon were immensely favorable to the dying man: he or his heirs would receive 70% of all profits generated by subscriptions and sales of the memoir, plus a $25,000 advance (equivalent to $850,000 in 2023) paid from Twain's own pocket. Over the two years following publication this percentage would generate more than $450,000 (equivalent to $15,300,000 today) in royalties for Julia Grant.[10][12]
Twain moved in to Grant's New York City townhouse and remained literally at Grant's side while the dying man wrote up his life. Twain provided literary and copy editing at all stages of the book's composition, often offering advice on a page-by-page basis as he sat next to his furiously scribbling friend. Despite his worsening condition and the constant pain it produced, Grant wrote as a man possessed. During the evenings Twain would read all pages produced during that day and make suggestions to enhance consistency and tone. These evening readings often amounted to an astonishing fifty pages of draft, a pace that Grant maintained for more than four months.[8]
Throughout his career Grant had repeatedly told highly detailed stories of his military experiences, sometimes making slight mistakes in terms of dates and locations. As a hardscrabble farmer in